The Many Faces Of...

If a documentary's purpose is to makes you want to find out more about the subject then The Many Faces of Les Dawson was a huge success.

Dawson is one of those classic comedians that, annoyingly, I haven't paid as much attention to as I should have. That's a shame, really, because there's a lot to like about him.

The fact that he had to overcome the adversity of poverty and was selling vacuum cleaners for years and years until he became famous was new to me and an interesting segment of the show.

However, I think the thing I most like about his early career was that he appeared on Opportunity Knocks - and failed to win - but became just about a bigger success than anyone else who appeared on it. Even back in 1967, comedians were proving just how stupid and pointless talent shows were.

There were a few other fascinating factual nuggets in this show, too. The fact that Dawson's show Sez Les was the only TV show that John Cleese did between Monty Python and Fawlty Towers was a revelation. I never knew the two of them worked together until now.

Yes, he is manly known for mother-in-law gags and deliberately playing the piano badly, but there's much more to Les Dawson than that, as I've just found out.

There was so much more to Les Dawson than an endless stream of mother-in-law jokes; he was erudite, well read, a brilliant writer and a master of the comically surreal. John Cleese, who worked with Dawson on his TV show Sez Les in the 1970s, says of his old friend: "He was an autodidact, a very smart guy who was fascinated by words."

Dawson was a product of those unforgiving crucibles of a certain kind of comedy, northern working me's clubs. He developed what became the most beloved part of his act - playing the piano brilliantly badly - as a means of shutting up vituperative audiences. Colleagues, admirers and Dawson's widow, Tracy, contribute.

The nostalgic can wallow in plenty of retro-fare this Christmas, from old Morecambe and Wise specials, by way of Tommy Cooper repeats and this splendid profile of the poker-faced comedian who was still selling vacuum cleaners at the age of 38 when, in 1967, he had one last throw of the dice and entered Opportunity Knocks. Dawson's deadpan humour is appreciated here by John Cleese, Robert Webb ("it's quite easy to play the piano badly and not be funny") and Russell Kane ("some of us younger people did muddle him up with John Prescott"). Touchingly, Dawson stopped cracking mother-in-law jokes when his wife's mother died.

In terms of laughs-per-minute, this brilliant documentary profiling the life and work of the late Northern comedian Les Dawson is the one to beat tonight. Featuring many guffaw-inducing clips of Dawson in performance (sample quote: "I'd like to play you something by Mozart, but I won't because he never plays any of mine") as well as interviews with John Cleese, Jon Culshaw and others, it's a welcome celebration of one of the last century's most gifted comics.

Excellent clip/talking head profile of Les Dawson, progeny of the north-west club scene, and from his late 30s until his death, a mainstay of comedy and light entertainment on television. Proper stars like John Cleese and Robert Webb duly doff their caps, which is diverting enough, but the real fun is in the archive material, whether it be Les singing with Lulu, his magnificently satirical piano-playing, or his deadpan one-liners. Features many a reference to Dawson's equivalent of Moriarty, his mother-in-law.

Dame Judi Dench may be a Hollywood superstar now, but to say she's paid her dues is a bit of an understatement. This documentary, which spans her 50-year career, shows her first TV appearance in Z Cars and her time in gentle sitcom-land with A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By. But it wasn't until she became "a newcomer in her 60s" playing M in Goldeneye and bagging awards for Mr Brown and Shakespeare In Love that she was unleashed as an international star. Friends and fans Michael Parkinson, Geoffrey Palmer and Simon Callow bow down.

Celebrating the life and career of one of Britain's best loved actresses through the many characters she has played over the years, from her celebrated early performance as the monstrous Beverly of Abigail's Party in the Seventies to the recently acclaimed role of Essex mother Pam Shipman in Gavin & Stacey.

Alison Steadman interview

Now best known for her brassy Essex alter ego, Gavin and Stacey star Alison Steadman says she is living proof that women no longer have a sell by date in showbiz.

As safe as houses

People giggled when I said I was going to be reviewing The Many Faces of June Whitfield. What was it? The mismatch between the fusty bombast of the first half of the title and the slightly parochial connotations of the subject? Would the name June Whitfield have done it on its own - as a marker of a very Middle English type of comedy - or did it need the mildewed showbiz-bio description as well? It is, you'd have to admit, the kind of title that keys you up for a spoof. It's got something of "Balham - Gateway to the South" about it, an association that wasn't exactly dispelled by the opening line of the voiceover: "For more than 60 years, one woman has been at the beating heart of British comedy". But while Steve Coogan - the Inside Story took the very wise precaution of sending itself up now and then, The Many Faces of June Whitfield was played absolutely in earnest. Tongue and cheek never met once as a parade of approbatory clichés ("consummate professional", "pin-sharp timing", "joy to write for") filed past. If this documentary had been a person it would have been wearing a Pringle sweater and a silk cravat, just as Nicholas Parsons was, in fact, when he popped up to hymn June's indispensability to the string of top-of-the-bill comics she'd worked with.

Latterly remembered for looking vaguely appalled as Terry Scott's deckchair collapsed, or for some deliciously acid exchanges in Ab Fab ("In this body there is a thin person dying to get out." "Just the one, dear?"), there's more to June Whitfield than just a succession of second fiddles. Covering her West End debut during the Blitz, to her postwar heyday (Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd) and beyond, this is a charming celebration of her career.